housewife, Calvinist, libertarian and theonomist discussing what is interesting and important to me

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Why Christians Should Oppose the Drug War

"A free man must be able to endure it when his fellow men act and
live otherwise than he considers proper. He must free
himself from the habit, just as soon as something does not please him,
of calling for the police...[h]e who wants to
reform his countrymen must take recourse to persuasion. This alone is
the democratic way of bringing about changes. If a man fails in his
endeavors to convince other people of the soundness of his ideas,he should blame his own disabilities. He should not ask for
a law, that is, for compulsion and coercion by the police.” Ludwig von Mises

The failure of the War on Drugs needs to be acknowledged and accepted by Christians. We need to stop supporting this war. Not only does it fail to accomplish its stated goal, it is harmful to liberty.

"The war on drugs is a failure. It has failed to prevent drug abuse. It
has failed to keep drugs out of the hands of addicts. It has failed to
keep drugs away from teenagers. It has failed to reduce the demand for
drugs. It has failed to stop the violence associated with drug
trafficking. It has failed to help drug addicts get treatment. It has
failed to have an impact on the use or availability of most drugs in the
United States." Laurence Vance

I couldn't agree more with Mr. Vance. And here he points out the damage done by the War on Drugs:

"The other mischievous dangers of the drug war that have been let loose
are legion. The war on drugs has clogged the judicial system,
unnecessarily swelled prison populations, fostered violence, corrupted
law enforcement, eroded civil liberties, destroyed financial privacy,
encouraged illegal searches and seizures, ruined countless lives, wasted
hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars, hindered legitimate pain
treatment, turned law-abiding people into criminals, and unreasonably
inconvenienced retail shopping. The costs of drug prohibition far
outweigh any possible benefits."

Certainly it is acceptable to call the abuse of drugs a "vice." And so it is. There is no reason we shouldn't be free to avoid association with drug users if we so choose. But we are wrong to use the government and its monopoly on violence to force others to comply with our preferences. Murder is already a crime. Theft is already a crime. We aren't tolerating murder and thievery when we stop enforcing drug prohibitions or decriminalize possession of drugs.